There’s no question that embracing local, seasonal ingredients is a practice and a philosophy widely adopted by chefs and restaurants around the country. But serving organic and/or local food is just one facet of environmentally conscious practices in restaurants. Going green can take many directions and present a variety of satisfactions and challenges, especially for smaller, independent restaurateurs.
Recycling, composting food waste, reusing materials, gardening, using low-impact building materials and cleaning products, conserving water and developing green partnerships—independent restaurants practice all of these, but how they’re implemented is as varied as the restaurants’ locations and the chefs’ personalities.
Maria Hines, chef-owner of Tilth restaurant in Seattle, says: “I’ve followed green practices at home for years. Once I got my own restaurant, I pretty much implemented the same things I do at home.”
The word Tilth means “cultivated land,” and Hines, who gained recognition at W Hotel’s Earth & Ocean in Seattle, was inspired in her green efforts by trailblazer Nora Pouillon of Washington, D.C.’s Restaurant Nora, the first restaurant in the country to be USDA-certified organic in 1999. In 2006, Tilth was only the third U.S. restaurant to receive the certification, which requires that ingredients be 95 percent organic.
Monica Pope, chef-owner of t’afia in Houston, explains that she and partner Andrea Lazar began crafting a mission statement eight years ago to include the eco-friendly goals they cared about.
“First you’ve got to get the basic restaurant needs met, like the dishwasher showing up,” Pope says. “Then you can focus on green practices. We’d reached the point where we had a good business going, so we could begin working on the things we really wanted to do.”
Mizael Saucedo, chef and general manager of Bess Bistro in Austin, Texas, grew up gardening.
“My great-grandfather was a citrus farmer in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, and my family had big gardens outside of Houston,” Saucedo says. “Throughout my career, I always wanted an organic restaurant garden. Now I have one.”
Bess’ actively involved owner, actor Sandra Bullock, also was raised in a recycling, macrobiotic household, and Bullock is firmly committed to ecologically sound practices in her restaurant.
Recycling Depending on location, recycling can present some obstacles for small operations. Some cities, like San Francisco, Santa Monica, Calif., and Seattle, make it relatively easy for restaurants to recycle—there is regular pickup for glass, paper, metal and plastic. Seattle’s Tilth takes advantage of city recycling pickup twice a week, “but we pay for the service,” Hines says. However, in most urban areas, even those with viable residential recycling programs, there isn’t yet a commercial-recycling option. In Houston, t’afia’s own little truck makes two to three runs a week to a nearby recycling center. “I’m obsessed with recycling,” Pope says. “Every station has easy access to recycling and composting containers. Separating materials is part of the dishwashers’ and runners’ jobs.” The benefits of recycling and composting are immediate, she says. “We drastically reduce our volume of garbage and save $3,000 per year on garbage pickup.” Though Bess Bistro has implemented many green practices, Saucedo admits that they haven’t figured out how to recycle efficiently. Austin doesn’t pick up from commercial establishments, and Bess’ tiny kitchen doesn’t have room for recycling bins. Re-using But Saucedo waxes eloquent about Bess’ composting; the restaurant shares downtown garden space with The Austin Wine Merchant next door. “We’ve been composting kitchen scraps for a year now,” he says. “We’re on a 21-day cycle of feeding and turning the compost. We use it in the garden where we grow things like rosemary, basil, parsley and haricots verts.” A biodiesel company picks up used kitchen oil at no cost to the restaurant. “We call them the Grease Ninjas because we never see them,” Saucedo says. “The grease containers disappear during the night and they leave us empties.” Bess’ to-go cups, straws, plastic ware and boxes are made from biodegradable materials like potatoes and sugarcane. In Seattle, the city conveniently picks up Tilth’s compost materials twice weekly, and a biodiesel company comes for the spent kitchen grease. A Houston-area farmer collects the 40 to 50 gallons of kitchen waste per week that t’afia generates. “At Bess, we say that the whole building is a reuse project,” Saucedo says. Located in the cozy basement of a 1918 Austin apartment building that most recently housed a bank, the kitchen is in the old vault. The soft leather covering the banquettes is recycled from another restaurant, and the tabletops are of wood reclaimed from a 120-year-old barn. Table tents are printed on the card-stock backs of obsolete wine lists. In a similar vein, Tilth is housed in a former residential bungalow now decorated with low volatile organic compound paint. They save produce boxes and return them to the farmers. Dining tables are crafted from eco-friendly bamboo, and patio furniture is also of sustainable wood. Reducing Minimizing laundry expenses is a green practice that can positively affect the bottom line. The trend toward less formal dining has helped make tablecloth use less expected, and both Pope and Saucedo emphasize how staff training has significantly reduced the volume of used kitchen towels. There also are other ways to conserve water and energy. Since Tilth installed low-flush toilets, Hines says, the water bill has decreased 10 percent. Serving tap water is on the rise in many restaurants. t’afia has turned this practice into a positive branding vehicle by using recycled wine bottles filled with filtered water and complete with a t’afia Water label. “It’s one of our trademarks,” Pope says, “and the wine companies love seeing a wine bottle on every table.” Bess minimizes toxic chemicals on the premises by making cleaning products from restaurant staples like vinegar, lemon juice, baking soda and rock salt. “It was trial and error, introducing home remedies that our grandparents used,” Saucedo says. “The staff didn’t much like it at first, it takes a bit more elbow grease, but the system’s in place now and works well.” In March, owner Sandra Bullock was featured on “Oprah’s Earth Day Event,” demonstrating Bess’ housemade cleaning solutions, filtered tap water and biodegradable to-go materials. Sourcing A cornerstone of green practices in restaurants is food itself and its sources—local, seasonal, often organic ingredients that are sustainably raised or harvested and that support regional economies through partnerships with farmers, ranchers, fishermen, wineries and foragers. With ubiquitous fuel surcharges, the shorter the distances food travels, the less the added cost and the smaller the carbon footprint. Tilth has relationships with about 25 Seattle-area food producers, and “we hit the farmers markets every week,” Hines says. “I change the menu monthly to reflect what’s available.” Her organic certification requires 95 percent organic ingredients; the remaining 5 percent is sustainably harvested seafood and foraged items, such as mushrooms. Saucedo is a regular at the nearby Austin Downtown Farmers’ Market and works directly with 10 to 15 local farmers, cheese makers and meat producers. Five years ago, seeing few neighborhood markets in Houston, Pope founded the Midtown Farmers’ Market in t’afia’s parking lot, flanked by the restaurant’s fruit trees and herbs. Today, the market is open 50 Saturday mornings a year, with vendors set up inside the restaurant and outside under tents. Respect While turning an independent restaurant green takes commitment, time and energy, the results can be satisfying, positively affect the bottom line, and produce indirect, less tangible benefits in terms of reputation and community support, operators say. “Following some of these practices can initially be more expensive, but I’d rather do the right thing,” Hines says. “And I’ve chosen not to pass on these costs to my customers. We get support and positive feedback in the Seattle community and we’ve gotten very good coverage in the local press. People here notice green practices and respond to them.” “For me, it’s a question of scale and energy—food energy, physical energy, emotional energy,” Pope says. “How do we best want to spend that? We reduced our restaurant’s seats from 85 to 65 to 49, and now serve dinner five nights a week. I want to be here every night to interact personally with customers. We’ve simplified our menus and our plates, which means that diners have greater flexibility in choosing what they really want, and don’t want, to eat. It means less food waste and fewer cooks on the line. Bigger isn’t necessarily better for us, and by giving customers more space, more attention, better food and better service, they are happier and spend more money. Does everyone in Houston get it? No, but our house is full every night.” Green restaurant resources Green Restaurant Association 89 South St., Suite LL02 Boston, MA 02111 (858) 452-7378 Founded in 1990 by Michael Oshman, the nonprofit Green Restaurant Association provides research, consulting, education and marketing assistance to restaurants seeking cost-effective sustainable operation. GRA has certified more than 300 restaurants in the United States and Canada. The group’s book, “Dining Green: A Guide to Creating Environmentally Sustainable Restaurants and Kitchens,” covers topics like waste diversion, disposable products, pest management, and water and energy conservation. The website provides an extensive online database of environmentally responsible products for the restaurant industry. Oregon Tilth 470 Lancaster Drive NE Salem, OR 97301 (503) 378-0690 Nonprofit Oregon Tilth promotes “biologically sound and socially equitable agriculture” through education, research and certification. The Oregon Tilth’s Certified Organic process, in place for 30 years, offers organic certification under USDA organic regulations, providing production standards, on-site inspections and legally binding contracts for food-related organizations, including restaurants. Thimmakka Green Restaurant Consultants 475 Alcatraz Ave, #11 Oakland, CA 94609-1151 (510) 655-5566 Thimmakka is a nonprofit entity dedicated to environmental outreach and green-restaurant certification. Founded in 1998 by Ritu Primlani to assist South Asian businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area, it has certified almost 70 restaurants in the Thimmakka Certified Green Program based on the Association of Bay Area Governments’ Green Business Program. Thimmakka provides restaurants with resource measurement systems to monitor, assess and modify energy use, environmental pollution, solid-waste production and water use.